MM#255--Is China Building A 'String of Pearls' in the Atlantic Ocean?

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser.

Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. Now, this Mojo Minute will be a little different and it will be a little of the same. So in our last episode we resurrected the author Spotlight, where we featured Brad Thor as this month's author in the Spotlight. We think that this new format will be, particularly for these episodes, will be exactly what you guys are looking for. It introduces some variety to our Theory to Action podcast, and so we were very excited to share that with you on Tuesday. If you have not checked that out, be sure to go back and listen to that episode. And Brad Thor on Tuesday is bringing us some thrilling fiction. That certainly could be of tomorrow's headlines and, frankly, one of those headlines I hope is not coming true, but we can't stick our heads in the sand and just hope it away. And one of those headlines could be is China building a military base on the island of Cuba and, honestly, right now, when I heard the news, I immediately thought of Brad Thor's novel from last year, rising Tiger. Yeah, I know, but it's exactly what I thought, and the reason I thought that is there is a part in the novel Rising Tiger where Brad introduces us to this current Chinese military strategy called the String of Pearls. And before we do that, let's back up and let's talk about the overall plot of the book Rising Tiger to get some context. So here's a quick overview of the book. Again, this is Brad Thor's book Rising Tiger. Last year came out roughly about the same time. Fascinating book, very good writing. So there's two nations involved right in the beginning of the book China and India. One is an important ally, india obviously, and the other, china, is quickly becoming an enemy of the United States, which we didn't see happening just even a short three or four years ago. When the events start moving quickly in the novel, an American diplomat is in India, is killed, a helicopter carrying the head of the Indian army crashes for no apparent reason, and then in Virginia the head of a private intelligence firm and his family are subjected to weird and crazy pain through some type of radio waves. But these radio waves that are harming the executive and his family are eerily similar to something that had just happened between the Chinese and Indian troops during a minor battle on skirmish in one of their on again, off again hotspots along the northeast border or the northeast border of India. So all of these events are the background and the context that Brad Thor is weaving together in the tale that is rising tiger. And then we have the books. The books protagonist, scott Harvath, former Navy SEAL. He starts to connect the dots and he starts to unravel some of these items and the book is captivating, it's compelling, it's riveting and it's just a classic Brad Thor novel, one of 22 that he's written before A lot of cloak and dagger stuff, which is pretty cool. And that's where I get excited, because I just love reading Brad Thor's novels, because you actually learn something in his novels. And here is the perfect example when a rising tiger, brad Thor, helps to explain to the reader what the string of pearls strategy is that China is executing on right now as we speak. And actually let's go to the book to get the details, because it would also give you a good flavor of Brad Thoris writing. Going to the book, harvath was familiar with the string of pearl strategy. It was the maritime extension of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, but much more dangerous. With the Belt and Road Initiative, china was investing in infrastructure projects from East Asia to Europe ports, roads, bridges, highway and rail networks in order to purchase influence and create dependence across 60 countries. It was in the process of spending north of 20 trillion dollars and one to end up Reaching nearly 60% of the world's population. Once the country took China's money, it was like being on the hook to a particular nasty loan shark. At that point, beijing had its nose under the under your 10 and could begin to push for what it wanted to have happen in your country's affairs, both domestic and International. In addition, beijing was always on the hunt for territorial toe holds. That was what made the string of pearls so unsettling. The string was a route that wound from mainland China through the Indian Ocean around the Horn of Africa. The pearls were stops along the way where the Chinese had invested heavily and quote port projects and in return have been granted docking and staging rights under the guise of commercial shipping. China had been building up these ports so that they could accommodate Chinese warships and as China had just leapt ahead of America in the size of its Navy, anything that helped the Chinese repair, refuel and resupply its battle force vessels was of added strategic concern of the United States. In short, as the Belt and Road Initiative had taken off, so had China's Navy, both through modernization and the construction of new ships. Among all their global superpower ambitions, they were hell bent on maritime domination. The United States was right to be concerned. Harvath shared with Proctor what he knew. We're not the only ones worried about the string of pearls, the Admiral replied. New Delhi is too. The Indian Ocean has always been within their sphere of influence. The Chinese, however, have muscled in and are boxing them out of relationships with regional partners. But that's not the worst of it. We also have reports that China has been angling to base combatant task force units at each of the pearls, as well as to construct high-end surveillance outpost. Essentially, they are working with amazing speed to solidify control of the Indian Ocean and upend the balance of power. China's goal is quite clear to encircle India in order to choke it off. Proctor put up a map of the region and highlighted each area as he Continued speaking. India shares a massive border to its north with China, which is rife with territorial disputes and increasing Chinese hostilities. The string of pearls, as we've discussed, surrounds India to the south. To the west is India's long-standing enemy, pakistan. Here China has cemented a strategic alliance by investing over 62 billion dollars in projects referred to as the China Pakistan economic corridor. Following. There is Bhutan, to the east, where China has been slicing off land from a strategic plateau where India, china and Bhutan meet. It overlooks a thin strip of the Indian territory known as the chicken's neck, which functions as a corridor connecting India to states in its northeast. Even though the terrain is extremely rugged and virtually inhospitable, china has been constructing buildings there Obscensibly to house military units that will be able to cut off access to this vital Indian corridor. Once that is done, the noose will be complete. China can choke off India to death. All it has to do is squeeze, and India is a nuclear power with more than a million troops. Harvass stated that's not going to end well. But what does this have to do with the United States and what Ritter was doing? In John Apoor? He had been covertly negotiating an Asian version of NATO. The plan is to bring the United States, japan, Australia and India together to counter the growing threat from China. It was an ambitious plan and made sense on multiple levels. Harvath could understand why it was being discussed. He could also understand why the Chinese would hate it and wanted to put a stop to it at all cost. So my job is to figure out what happened to Ritter and then what? Admiral Proctor looked at the other people around the table and then back to Harvath. Your official tasking will come from your organization. My job was solely to present the briefing I understood. Is there anything else I need to know? You've tangled with the Chinese more than once, said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. You know how dangerous they are and while I shouldn't have to warn you, I'm going to say it anyway. Watch your back, I'm serious, and you get a bunch of knowledge as the ideas and different facts are brought up To weave into the storyline of how or why Things might play out. In a certain way. I hope you like Brad Thorwer's writing. I always find it fascinating and I always found it find his writing compelling Because he's always wargaming everything out on the world stage, and that's what is captivating too. Now, all that's to say, did you know that China is in fact building a military base on the island of Cuba right now? Right, it's not I'm talking. There's construction of a Chinese military base 100 miles off the coast of Florida. Now, you might say that can't be. The Biden administration would never allow that to happen. I mean, you know JFK didn't allow the Soviets to put missiles in the Cuba in 1962. Actually, this president wouldn't let the Chinese just build a military base so close to the American coastline. Well, let's go to the Wall Street Journal of June 8, 2023. Wall Street Journal News Exclusive dated June 8, 2023, dateline Washington, china and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for China to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island in a brash new geopolitical challenge by Beijing to the United States. According to one US official familiar with highly classified intelligence, an eavesdropping facility in Cuba, roughly 100 miles from Florida, would allow Chinese intelligence services to scoop up electronic communications throughout the southeastern United States, where many military bases are located to monitor US shipping traffic. People familiar with the matter said that China had agreed to pay cash-strapped Cuba several billion dollars to allow it to build the eavesdropping station and that the two countries had reached an agreement in principle. The revelation about the plan sighted sparked alarm within the Biden administration. Because of Cuba's proximity to the US mainland, washington regards Beijing as the most significant economic and military rival. A Chinese base with advanced military and intelligence capabilities in the United States' backyard could be an unprecedented new threat. You don't think, okay? So now we have actual, factual knowledge that there is a base being built. It's been under agreement for some time. China is paying cash-strapped Cuba to be able to build that base, so let's go deeper into this article. Going back to the article, on Wednesday evening John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, said he could not comment on the details of the Wall Street Journal's reporting, but noted that the US was monitoring and taking steps to counter the Chinese government's efforts to invest in infrastructure that might have military purposes. On Thursday, after publication of this article, kirby said this report is not accurate. Without providing any details, he added we remain confident that we are able to meet all of our security commitments at home and in the region. Cuba's embassy in Washington said Thursday that the article was totally mendacious and unfounded information. The Chinese embassy had no comment. Us officials described the intelligence on the planned Cuba site, apparently gathered in recent weeks, as convincing. They said the base would enable China to conduct signals intelligence known in the espionage world as SIGINT, which could include the monitoring of a range of communication, including emails, phone calls and satellite transmissions. So earlier this year we had a balloon that flew from Alaska to South Carolina across the United States, and the Biden administration barely took any action until it was over the coast of South Carolina and then they finally shut it down. They first said there was no intelligence gathering capability with the balloon and then we find out a month or two later that it certainly had a ton of intelligence and it was probably reporting back to Beijing. Now we have a military base being built 100 miles off our shore, so we are certainly being provoked, but evidently the Biden administration does not understand what is happening and cannot protect the United States. Let's go back to this article. On a joint statement, the top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee said a Chinese eavesdropping facility in Cuba would pose a quote serious threat to our national security and sovereignty and urge the administration to take action. We are deeply disturbed by reports that Havana and Beijing are working together to target the United States and our people. Senators Mark Warner, democrat Virginia, the chairman of the panel, and Marco Rubio, republican Florida, the vice chairman. The US has intervened before to stop foreign powers from extending their influence in the Western Hemisphere, most notably during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The US and the Soviets the Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear war after the Soviets deployed nuclear capable missiles to Cuba, prompting a US Navy quarantine of the island, the Soviets backed down and removed the missiles. A few months later, the US quietly removed intermediate range ballistic missiles from Turkey that the Soviets had complained about. The intelligence on the new base comes in the midst of the Biden administration's efforts to improve US-China relations after months of acrimony that followed a Chinese spy balloon's flight over the US earlier this year. And then, finally, we get to the part of the article that I want to concentrate on. China's only declared a foreign military base is in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. It is embarked on a global port development campaign in places including Cambodia and the United Arab Emirates. Us officials say that the effort is aimed at creating a network of military ports and intelligence bases to project Chinese power around the globe. Sounds a little bit like the string of pearls, doesn't it? Security relations between Washington and Beijing have grown tense in recent weeks after close encounters between US and Chinese ships in the Taiwan Strait and between the two nations military aircraft over the South China Sea. Okay, so perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions, or which I think is closer to the truth, perhaps, just perhaps, our national leaders are frankly asleep at the wheel, just like they were asleep at the wheel and getting out of Afghanistan and that horrific planned withdrawal. And oh, by the way, no one has suffered because of that terrible execution and planned withdrawal. No one lost their job, no one was demoted. The Joint Chiefs of Staff guy is still there. The Defense Secretary is still there. It's absolutely laughable. It's a clown show. But let's pivot and let's go to another piece of research. I found December 2021. There's a report from one of the most respected international relations groups. Because I think we can connect some dots now, let's go to this article. The group is the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It's based out of Georgetown, I would say this organization and has a historically has a leftist lean to them and they have some of the perpetual pro war DC crowd that funds them, and those same folks are on the board of trustees. So they're certainly part of the same crowd. But hey, we'll listen to their argument. We'll read this article. We at the Mojo Academy are all forward discovering the truth, so let's go to this article and see what they say. Title is China building a new string of pearls in the Atlantic Ocean. Hmm, article, like I said, from December 20th 2021. On December 5th, the Wall Street Journal reported that China's People's Liberation Army, the PLA, is seeking to establish a permanent military facility in the Central African nation of Equatorial Guinea. While the Equatorial Guinea in government has so far denied the reports, us defense officials have raised concerns about the possible plan. If reports are true, if China is able to construct a military base on the Atlantic Ocean, it would mark an important step forward in the PLA strategy to expand its global power projection. Let's keep going. Those capabilities would add to China's current effort to build a global network of dual-use facilities that can be transformed into forward operating bases. And they have a wonderful picture of Bata, equatorial Guinea, its port. They showed two commercial ports and a new civilian boat basin and plenty of warehouse facility in an intermodal yard that's being built out. This is a very good article. If plans for the base move ahead, the Port of Batia is the most suitable for any future People's Liberation Army Navy. The PLAN basing the port is located in the central mainland coast and is home to Batia, the country's largest city population 425,000, along with a port of Malibu, which is located near the capital of Malibu, on the island of Binko, 190 kilometers northwest of the mainland. The Port of Batia is one of the country's two largest ports and it consists of a commercial port, navy and civilian boat basin. Batia is a modern open port that possesses two long, 531 meters and 550 meter commercial piers, surrounded by a well-defined and maintained seawall. Both piers could easily handle any vessel within the PLAN order of battle. Additionally, it is situated adjacent to an oil facility that could facilitate refueling in a warehouse area and intermodal yard to facilitate resupply, should it be desired. The overall design of the port could easily allow for its expansion further into the Atlantic Ocean and to the Southeast On land. Here's the kicker, here's the important part, here's the nugget of wisdom that we're tying together. A Chinese naval base at Batia would build on the sizable Chinese presence in Equatorial Guinea, marking over a five decades of engagement, represented by a large embassy and an equally significant trade mission. As is the case across Africa, china has engaged in large scale investments in the country, anchored primarily in infrastructure projects. Indeed, in 2006, the Export-Import Bank of China provided the initial funding for the construction of the port of Batia, which was built by the state owned China Communications Construction Company, first Harbor Engineering Company. In 2014, another state owned enterprise, the China Road and Bridge Corporation, the CRBC made significant upgrades to the port and, following a 2015 meeting between President Xi Jinping and Equatorial Guineas President Theodore Abba Nugami, the Industrial Commercial Bank of China announced a $2 billion agreement to provide quote financial support for the Equatorial Guinean government, as well as Chinese companies operating in the country. In 2014, the PLAN began port calls, so now the military navy is showing up not just commercial vessels from China, but the military navy of China. The PLAN began port calls with Gulf countries and launched its first anti-piracy drills with local navies. From 2014 to 2019., china engaged in 39 military exchanges with Gulf counterparts, many involving PLAN vessels conducting anti-piracy operations. China's military ties with Equatorial Guinea are still growing. In, china only held two military engagements with Equatorial Guinea during this period. Both were senior level meetings with the Chinese Minister of Defense. Chinese companies have also stepped up and have constructed naval barracks and housing for the Equatorial Guinean military, and in 2020, the Chinese Central Military Commission further directed the PLA Air Force to deliver COVID-19 supplies to Malibu. So we have all kinds of things, all kinds of dots, being connected here, and you can see where Brad Thor and his writing about the string of pearls that was happening to India. We might just start seeing over the horizon here in Equatorial Guinea and certainly, by extension, in Cuba. The Wall Street Journal report thus places equatorial Guinea in a very difficult position vis-a-vis China and the United States, as the government privileges relations with both powers and cannot afford to frustrate either one. The United States has heavily invested in the oil sector, which has provided the regime great financial wealth and has turned the country into a middle-income nation. While the United States has denounced the regime's human rights record, the country's restricted political space in corrupt governance and no longer maintains a defense attaché residence in the country, equatorial Guinea has nonetheless remained a valued US partner, including in the fight against piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. The small but influential US embassy in Malibu represents US oil companies that proudly fly the Star-Spangled Banner outside of their headquarters. Regardless of the outcome of the possible PLA base in Equatorial Guinea, china will continue to increase its global military influence. It will almost certainly establish additional overseas military facilities and access points, and its ability to project power will expand. A new era of Chinese military capabilities has thus already arrived. And there you go. So you can see, just taking that last sentence, a new era of Chinese military capabilities has thus already arrived. So, to recap this, in December of 2021, china has a new port on the western side of Africa, in the country of Equatorial Guinea. Now China is building a new military base on the island of Cuba and then, if you look at a map, there is a straight line across the Atlantic Ocean from Equatorial Guinea to Cuba in the Caribbean. That makes it quite easy for a Chinese Navy to refuel and load up with some sizeable firepower right in our own backyard of the Atlantic Ocean, with not one military base now, but with two. Everyone thinks of China just playing havoc with international shipping in the South China Sea. No, no, not now. Now they have a presence in the Atlantic, with not one military base, but with two. So, to fully make the connection that Brad Thor introduced us to in his book Rising Tiger, is this China's aggressive string of Pearl strategy, and is it happening now in the Atlantic too? And, more importantly, what was happening to India is now, will it now be happening to the United States? Those are important questions to answer. Those are important questions that our military leaders must answer. But now you can see what I mean with these great Brad Thor books, because they make you think, they make you strategize. So in today's mojo minute, brad Thor can introduce us to eye catching headlines in his books. And if we're curious and we're watching how world events play out, sometimes those events begin playing out in our own backyard, just like we are seeing happening in Cuba and in Equatorial Guinea, with China and building those military bases. China's string of pearls is happening and it appears that we in the United States are asleep at the wheel again. So will our national leaders move aggressively to protect the country, or we will? Will we be distracted by a regional dispute in Ukraine, where many things are muddy and confusing and unclear and where the United States' interest cannot be articulated? But for now we can sit back, we can read that new Brad Thor novel, dead Fall, and we will probably, if I know Brad correctly, we can probably guess there will be a new strategy that we will have to unpack in this new novel. So, as always, team mojo, keep reading those good books to find those good books, to find those good nuggets of wisdom and, as always, let's go mojo.